View from Vegas, coaching trees and the AAC

Here are more odds and ends and ins and outs about the NCAA Tournament, which begins Tuesday night:

Vegas view

LAS VEGAS (AP) — That Kentucky is good — make that very good — isn’t debatable among this city’s bookmakers, who make the Wildcats nearly even money to cap an unbeaten season by winning the NCAA Tournament.

Kentucky will be favored by double digits in any matchup heading into the Final Four, beginning with what is expected to be a laugher in Thursday’s opening round against the winner of the Manhattan-Hampton game. Even if the Wildcats end up in a Final Four with three other No. 1 seeds, they would still be favored by at least 5.5 points against any opponent.

Really good, yes. Dominant, too, in a year where the rest of the tournament field is considered to be down, if just a bit.

Still, the people who set the odds on tournament games don’t see the Wildcats as the best ever. Not even if they run the table and finish the season undefeated.

The Anthony Davis-led Kentucky team that lost two games and won the national title in 2012 would be favored by 3.5 points against this year’s team, according to a consensus of Vegas oddsmakers and bettors tabulated by RJ Bell of Pregame.com, a leading betting website. So, too, would the 1991 UNLV team that went unbeaten before losing to Duke in the national semifinal game.

“Kentucky is not a historically great team,” Bell said. “The reason it is such a big favorite this year is the relevant comparison to the competition. The competition is weak this year, none of these other teams are all that good.”

Opening odds

Favorite

Line

Underdog

Tuesday

Manhattan

7½

Hampton

BYU

2½

Mississippi

Wednesday

North Florida

2½

Robert Morris

at Dayton

3½

Boise St.

Thursday

Arkansas

7

Wofford

North Carolina

9½

Harvard

Baylor

8

Georgia St.

Notre Dame

12½

Northeastern

Texas

1

Butler

Villanova

22½

Lafayette

NC State

1½

LSU

Kentucky

31

Hampton

Kentucky

24

Manhattan

Purdue

1

Cincinnati

Iowa St.

13

UAB

SMU

3

UCLA

Utah

6

Stephen F. Austin

Georgetown

8

E. Washington

Arizona

23

Texas Southern

Ohio St.

2½

VCU

Friday

Virginia

16½

Belmont

Michigan St.

4½

Georgia

Duke

21

North Florida

Duke

22

Robert Morris

San Diego St.

2½

St. John's

West Virginia

4

Buffalo

Maryland

4½

Valparaiso

Oklahoma

12½

Albany (NY)

Providence

1½

Boise St.

Providence

2½

Dayton

Kansas

11½

New Mexico St.

Wichita St.

5

Indiana

Wisconsin

19½

Coastal Carolina

Oregon

Pk

Oklahoma St.

N. Iowa

7

Wyoming

Louisville

9

UC Irvine

Gonzaga

17½

N. Dakota St.

Iowa

2

Davidson

Coaching trees

Some famous family coaching trees in college basketball and the number of wins, according to STATS. They include all wins for family members who spent most of their careers at the Division I level and include wins at other NCAA divisions as well as NAIA schools:

Most wins by family

Wins

Family

Coaches

1,632

The Ibas

Henry, Gene, Moe, Clarence

1,150

The Suttons

Eddie, Scott, Sean

982

The Drews

Homer, Scott, Bryce

981

The Knights

Bob, Pat

974

The Bartows

Gene, Murray

950

The Meyers

Ray, Joey

912

The Thompsons

John, John III

780

The Pitinos

Rick, Richard

694

The Bennetts

Dick, Tony

674

The Van Breda Kolffs

Butch, Jan

Beating Kentucky

If someone makes 10 3-pointers, or scores 40, or the Wildcats all go cold simultaneously, millions of brackets will likely go poof at the same time.

Two teams took the Wildcats to overtime and six others found a way to keep the final margin within 10 points. But the Wildcats are perhaps the NCAA’s biggest favorite in years isn’t a fluke.

“They know how to win and they figure out how to win,” Missouri coach Kim Anderson said. “When they get behind they figure out how to get ahead, and obviously that’s good coaching, that’s good players, but it’s an attitude. I think that is the most impressive thing.”

So here’s three tips on how to beat them:

LIMIT THE 3’S: Excluding the two overtime games, all six of the other teams who stayed within 10 of Kentucky for 40 minutes held the Wildcats to an average of 3.5 3-pointers in those games. That was, on average, about an eight-point savings over all other Kentucky games this season.

GET GOOD SHOTS: Mississippi, Florida, LSU and Georgia all shot 47 percent or better in a game against Kentucky this season, losing those four games by an average of only 5.0 points. In Kentucky’s other 30 games, the average margin at games’ end was 23.1 points.

ATTACK: In the eight “close” games, opponents shot 46 percent from 2-point range against Kentucky. In all other games, opponents shot 36.8 percent from inside the arc. And in the last three Wildcats’ games decided by 10 or fewer, teams shot a staggering 57.4 percent on 2’s.

The AAC (2 teams in)

The conference that produced the reigning national champion didn’t get much love from the selection committee once again. Temple was the first team out this season after SMU was snubbed in 2014.

As UConn’s title showed last year, the American has some powerful programs at the top. The problem is at the middle and bottom. So the committee isn’t too impressed by Temple’s victories over league foes such as Tulane or East Carolina, and two losses to Tulsa don’t look so good.